The Inheritance Trilogy

by N. K. Jemisin

  I waited patiently while she issued instructions to them. On the far side of the room, the human version of Nahadoth sat on a windowsill, gazing out at the early-afternoon sun. If he heard me enter, he did not look up to acknowledge it.

  “I confess I’m curious,” Scimina said, turning to me at last. I felt a fleeting, petty sense of pleasure at the sight of a large bruise on her jaw. Was there no magic to quickly heal such small wounds? A shame. “What could bring you here to visit me? Do you plan to plead for your nation?”

  I shook my head. “There would be no point.”

  She smiled, almost kindly. “True. Well, then. What do you want?”

  “To take you up on an offer,” I said. “I hope that it still stands?”

  Another small satisfaction: the blank look on her face. “What offer would that be, Cousin?”

  I nodded past her, at the still figure in the window. He was clothed, I saw, in a simple black shirt and pants, and a plain iron collar for once. That was good. I found him more distasteful nude. “You said that I was welcome to borrow your pet sometime.”

  Beyond Scimina, Naha turned to stare at me, his brown eyes wide. Scimina did, too, for a moment, and then she burst out laughing.

  “I see!” She shifted her weight to one side and put a hand on her hip, much to the consternation of the tailors. “I can’t argue with your choice, Cousin. He’s much more fun than T’vril. But—forgive me—you seem such a small creature. And my Naha is so very… strong. Are you certain?”

  Her insults wafted past me like air; I barely noticed. “I am.”

  Scimina shook her head, bemused. “Very well. I have no use for him at the moment anyhow; he’s weak today. Probably just right for you, though—” She paused then, glancing at the windows. Checking the position of the sun. “Of course you know to beware sunset.”

  “Of course.” I smiled, drawing a momentary frown from her. “I have no wish to die earlier than necessary.”

  Something like suspicion flickered in Scimina’s eyes for a moment, and I felt tension in the pit of my belly. But she finally shrugged.

  “Go with her,” she said, and Nahadoth rose.

  “For how long?” he asked, his voice neutral.

  “Until she’s dead.” Scimina smiled and opened her arms in a magnanimous gesture. “Who am I to deny a last request? But while you’re at it, Naha, see to it that she does nothing too strenuous—nothing that would incapacitate her, at least. We need her fit, two mornings from now.”

  The iron chain had been connected to a nearby wall. It fell away with Scimina’s words. Naha picked up the loose end, then stood watching me, his expression unreadable.

  I inclined my head to Scimina. She ignored me, returning her attention to the tailors’ work with a snarl of irritation; one of them had pinned the hem badly. I left, not caring whether Nahadoth followed now or later.

  What would I want, if I could be free?

  Safety for Darr.

  My mother’s death given meaning.

  Change, for the world.

  And for myself…

  I understand now. I have chosen who will shape me.

  “She’s right,” Naha said, when we stood together in my apartment. “I’m not much use at the moment.” He said it blandly, with no emotional inflection, but I guessed his bitterness.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m not interested anyhow.” I went to stand at the window.

  Silence behind me for a long moment, and then he came over. “Something’s changed.” The light was wrong to see his reflection, but I could imagine his suspicious expression. “You’re different.”

  “A lot has happened since you and I last met.”

  He touched my shoulder. When I did not throw off his hand, he took hold of the other, then turned me gently to face him. I let him. He stared at me, trying to read my eyes, perhaps trying to intimidate me.

  Except, up close, he was anything but intimidating. Deep lines of weariness marked paths from his sunken eyes; the eyes themselves were bloodshot, even more ordinary looking than before. His posture was slouched and strange. Belatedly I understood: he could barely stand. Nahadoth’s torture had taken its toll on him as well.

  My face must have shown my pity, because abruptly he scowled and straightened. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Sit down,” I said, gesturing to the bed. I tried to turn back to the window, but his fingers tightened on my shoulders. If he had been at his best, he would have hurt me. I understood that now. He was a slave, a whore, not even allowed part-time control of his own body. The only power he had was what little he could exert over his lovers, his users. That wasn’t much.

  “Are you waiting for him?” he asked. The way he said “him” held a treasure’s worth of resentment. “Is that it?”

  I reached up and detached his hands from my shoulders, pushing them away firmly. “Sit down. Now.”

  The “now” forced him to let go of me, walk the few steps to the bed, and sit down. He did it glaring the whole way. I turned back to the window and let his hate splash uselessly against my back.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m waiting for him.”

  A stunned pause. “You’re in love with him. You weren’t before, but you are now. Aren’t you?”

  You resist the truth.

  I considered the question.

  “In love with him?” I said it slowly. The phrase felt strange when I thought about it, like a poem that has been read too often. “In love with him.”

  Another memory preoccupies you.

  I was surprised to hear real fear in Naha’s voice. “Don’t be a fool. You don’t know how often I’ve woken up beside a corpse. If you’re strong, you can resist him.”

  “I know. I’ve said no to him before.”

  “Then…” Confusion.

  I had a sudden epiphany as to what his life had been like: this other, unwanted Nahadoth. Every day a plaything of the Arameri. Every night—not sleep but oblivion, as close to death as any mortal can come short of the event itself. No peace, no true rest. Every morning a chilling surprise: mysterious injuries. Dead lovers. And the soul-grinding knowledge that it would never, ever end.

  “Do you dream?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Dream. At night, while you’re… within him. Do you?”

  Naha frowned for a long moment, as if he was trying to figure out the trick in my question. Finally he said, “No.”

  “Not at all?”

  “I have… flashes, sometimes.” He gestured vaguely, looking away from me. “Memories, maybe. I don’t know what they are.”

  I smiled, feeling sudden warmth toward him. He was like me. Two souls, or at least two selves, in a single body. Perhaps that was where the Enefadeh had gotten the idea.

  “You look tired,” I said. “You should get some sleep.”

  He frowned. “No. I sleep enough at night—”

  “Sleep now,” I said, and he crumpled onto his side so swiftly that I might have laughed under other circumstances. I walked over to the bed, lifted his legs onto it and arranged him for comfort, then knelt beside it, putting my mouth near his ear.

  “Have pleasant dreams,” I commanded. The frown that had been on his face altered subtly, smoothing and softening.

  Satisfied, I got to my feet and went back to the window, to wait.

  Why can’t I remember what happened next?

  You are remembering—

  No, why can’t I remember it now? As I talk through it, it comes back to me, but only then. Without that there’s an empty space. A great dark hole.

  You are remembering.

  The instant the sun’s red curve sank below the horizon, the room shook, and with it the whole palace. This close, the vibration was powerful enough to make my teeth rattle. A line seemed to sweep the room, moving outward from behind me, and when this line passed, the room was darker. I waited, and when the hairs prickled on the back of my neck, I spoke. “Good evening, Lord Nahadoth. Are you feeling better
?”

  My only answer was a low, shuddering exhalation. The evening sky was still heavily stroked with sunlight, golds and reds and violets as deep as jewels. He was not himself yet.

  I turned. He was sitting up. He still looked human, ordinary, but I could see his hair wafting around him, though there was no breeze. As I watched it thickened, lengthened, darkened, spinning itself into the cloak of night. Fascinating, and beautiful. He had averted his face from the lingering sunlight and did not see me approach until I was right there. Then he looked up, raising a hand as if to shield himself. From me? I wondered, and smiled.

  The hand trembled as I watched. I took it, reassured by the cool dryness of his skin. (His skin was brown now, I noticed. My doing?) Beyond the hand his eyes watched me, black now, and unblinking. Unthinking, like those of a beast.

  I cupped his cheek and willed him sane. He blinked, frowned slightly, then stared at me as his confusion cleared. His hand in mine became still.

  When I judged the moment right, I let go his hand. Unfastened my blouse, and slipped it off my shoulders. I unhitched the skirt and let it fall, along with my underclothes. Naked, I waited, an offering.

  24

  If I Ask

  —AND THEN—THEN—

  You remember.

  No. No, I don’t.

  Why are you afraid?

  I don’t know.

  Did he hurt you?

  I don’t remember!

  You do. Think, child. I made you stronger than this. What were the sounds? The scents? What do the memories feel like?

  Like… like summer.

  Yes. Humid, thick, those summertime nights. Did you know—the earth absorbs all the day’s heat, and gives it back in the dark hours. All that energy just hovers in the air, waiting to be used. It slickens the skin. Open your mouth and it curls around your tongue.

  I remember. Oh, gods, I remember.

  I knew you would.

  The shadows in the room seemed to deepen as the Nightlord rose to his feet. He loomed over me, and for the first time I could not see his eyes in the dark.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Question?”

  “Whether you would kill me, if I asked.”

  I won’t pretend I wasn’t afraid. That was part of it—my pounding heart, the quickness of my breath. Esui, the thrill of danger. But then he reached out, so slowly that I worried I was dreaming, and trailed his fingertips up my arm. Just that one touch and my fear became something entirely different. Gods. Goddess.

  White teeth flashed at me, startling in the darkness. Oh, yes, this was far beyond mere danger.

  “Yes,” he said. “If you asked, I would kill you.”

  “Just like that?”

  “You seek to control your death as you cannot control your life. I… understand this.” So much unspoken meaning in that brief pause. I wondered, suddenly, whether the Nightlord had ever yearned to die.

  “I didn’t think you wanted me to control my death.”

  “No, little pawn.” I tried to concentrate on his words while his hand continued its slow journey up my arm, but it was difficult. I am only human. “It is Itempas’s way to force his will upon others. I have always preferred willing sacrifices.”

  He drew one fingertip along my collarbone now, and I nearly moved away because it felt almost unbearably good. I did not because I had seen his teeth. One did not run from a predator.

  “I… I knew you would say yes.” My voice shook. I was babbling. “I don’t know how, but I knew. I knew…” That I was more than a pawn to you. But no, that part I could not say.

  “I must be what I am.” He said it as if the words made sense. “Now. Are you asking?”

  I licked my lips, hungry. “Not to die. But—for you. Yes. I’m asking for you.”

  “To have me is to die,” he warned me, even as he grazed my breast with the backs of his fingers. The knuckles caught on my already-taut nipple and I could not help gasping. The room got darker.

  But one thought pushed up through the desire. It was the thought that had motivated me to do this mad thing, because in spite of everything I was not suicidal. I wanted to live for whatever pittance of time I had left. In the same way I hated the Arameri, yet I sought to understand them; I wanted to prevent a second Gods’ War, yet I also wanted the Enefadeh freed. I wanted so many things, each of them contradictory, all of them together impossible. I wanted them anyway. Perhaps Sieh’s childishness had infected me.

  “Once you took many mortal lovers,” I said. My voice was more breathy than it should have been. He leaned close to me and inhaled, as if scenting it. “Once you claimed them by the dozen, and they all lived to tell the tale.”

  “That was before centuries of human hatred made me a monster,” said the Nightlord, and for a moment his voice was sad. I had used the same word for him myself, but it felt strange and wrong to hear him say it. “Before my brother stole whatever tenderness there once was in my soul.”

  And just like that, my fear faded.

  “No,” I said.

  His hand paused. I reached up and caught it, my fingers tangling in his.

  “Your tenderness isn’t gone, Nahadoth. I’ve seen it. I’ve tasted it.” I pulled his hand up, up, to touch my lips. I felt his fingers twitch, as if in surprise. “You’re right about me; if I must die, I want to die on my own terms. There are so many things I will never do—but this I can have. You.” I kissed his fingers. “Will you show me that tenderness again, Nightlord? Please?”

  From the corner of my eye I saw movement. When I turned my head there were black lines, curling and random, etching their way along the walls, the windows, the floor. The lines flowed out from Nahadoth’s feet, spreading, overlapping. I caught a glimpse of strange, airy depths within the lines; a suggestion of drifting mist and deep, endless chasms. He let out a low, soughing breath, and it curled around my tongue.

  “I need so much,” he whispered. “It has been so long since I shared that part of myself, Yeine. I hunger—I always hunger. I devour myself with hunger. But Itempas has betrayed me, and you are not Enefa, and I… I am… afraid.”

  Tears stung my eyes. Reaching up, I cupped his face in my hands and pulled him down to me. His lips were cool, and this time they tasted of salt. I thought I felt him shiver. “I will give you all I can,” I said, when we parted.

  He pressed his forehead against mine; he was breathing hard. “You must say the words. I will try to be what I was, I will try, but—” He groaned softly, desperate. “Say the words!”

  I closed my eyes. How many of my Arameri ancestors had said these words and died? I smiled. It would be a death befitting a Darre, if I joined them.

  “Do with me as you please, Nightlord,” I whispered.

  Hands seized me.

  I do not say his hands because there were too many of them, gripping my arms and grasping my hips and tangling in my hair. One even curled ’round my ankle. The room was almost entirely dark. I could see nothing except the window and the sky beyond, where the sun’s light had finally faded completely. Stars spun as I was lifted and lowered until I felt the bed underneath my back.

  Then we fed each other’s hunger. Wherever I wanted to be touched, he touched; I don’t know how he knew. Whenever I touched him, there was a delay. I would cup emptiness before it became a smooth muscled arm. I would wrap my legs around nothing and only then find hips settled there, taut with ready energy. In this way I shaped him, making him suit my fantasies; in this way he chose to be shaped. When heavy, thick warmth pushed into me, I had no idea whether this was a penis or some entirely different phallus that only gods possessed. I suspect the latter, since no mere penis can fill a woman’s body the way he filled mine. Size had nothing to do with it. This time he let me scream.

  “Yeine…” Through the haze of my own body heat I was aware of few things. The clouds, racing across the stars. The black lines, webbing the room’s ceiling, widening and meldi
ng into one great yawning abyss. The rising urgency of Nahadoth’s movements. There was pain now, because I wanted it. “Yeine. Open yourself to me.”

  I had no idea what he meant; I could not think. But he gripped my hair and slid a hand under my hips, pulling me tighter against him in a way that sent me spiraling again. “Yeine!”

  Such need in him. Such wounds—two of them, raw and unhealing, for two lost lovers. So much more than one mortal girl could ever satisfy.

  And yet in my madness, I tried. I couldn’t; I was only human. But for that moment I yearned to be more, give more, because I loved him.

  I loved him.

  Nahadoth arched up, away from me. In the last starlight I caught a glimpse of a smooth, perfect body, taut-muscled and sleek with sweat all the way down to where it joined with mine. He had flung back his hair in an arc. His face was all tight-clenched eyes and open mouth and that delicious near-agony expression men make when the moment strikes. The black lines joined, and nothingness enclosed us.

  Then we fell.

  —no, no, we flew, not downward but forward, into the dark. There were streaks within this darkness, thin random lines of white and gold and red and blue. I put out my hand in fascination and snatched it back when something stung the fingertips. I looked and found them wet with glimmering stuff that spun with tiny orbiting motes. Then Nahadoth cried out, his body shuddering, and now we went up—

  —past endless stars, past countless worlds, through layers of light and glowing cloud. Up and up we went, our speed impossible, our size incomprehensible. We left the light behind and kept going, passing through stranger things than mere worlds. Geometric shapes that twisted and gibbered. A white landscape of frozen explosions. Shivering lines of intention that turned to chase us. Vast, whalelike beings with terrifying eyes and the faces of long-lost friends.

  I closed my eyes. I had to. Yet the images continued, because in this place I had no eyelids to close. I was immense, and still growing. I had a million legs, two million arms. I don’t know what I became in that place Nahadoth took me, because there are things no mortal is meant to do or be or comprehend, and I encompassed all of them.